The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[mosesburb]

So we spent the next day wandering around Pueblo with Bill. We stopped out by Larry and hung out for a little while before we all headed over and got some lunch. While at lunch we decided on a plan for the day. We left town to the south past the old steel mill:



We continued out of town and headed west into the mountains. Our destination was a castle. A castle in the mountains of Colorado?? I have got so see this. Well, we saw it. It was a castle, in the mountains. Hmmpf. Never would have expected that.

This "eclectic" guy named Jim Bishop is perpetually building a castle in the woods. Not sure why, but I'm sure he has his reasons. Anyways, here it is, Bishop's Castle:



It is wide open. You park along the road and just wander in. No admission fee or anything for that matter.

It looks neat from a distance. Up close, one begins to wonder if the builder has any engineering experience or background. Not terrible, mind you, just sketchy at best in places. His welds were not among the nicest I've seen, borderline scary at times and in many places, the welds are what supports the metal under your feet.



I couldn't muster enough testicular fortitude to take the first step out onto this thing (it's visible in the first pic of the castle--its the bridge-like thing at the top):



So we ended up staying another night with Bill. I mentioned it didn't seem right hanging out with him and no campfire, so we grabbed the campfire in a can and put it out on the deck and got to sit around a campfire with Bill. It was a real nice time.

At this point we need to start heading in the direction of home. The crew was getting a bit tired of traveling. I was actually expecting a mutiny between Denver and Pueblo. I figured the Suburban would eventually be found, but I wasn't so sure about me. I can't say that I blame them. We had a few LONG travel days without much to get out and see, but at the same time I know EXACTLY what was at home and it isn't what we are seeing now. Damn the torpedoes!! PRESS ON!!

We decided on a destination of Durango for the day. We'd get a room at the Caboose and head on home the next day. That works. We've seen a lot on this journey and I guess it has to end sometime. So we head out of Pueblo down 25 to 160 and head west. We go through Pagosa Springs and over Wolf Creek Pass. We stop in a little po-dunk town along the way and visit a guy who is building a 72 pickup with a Cummins. He has done some beautiful fab work on his conversion. His conversion is like fine cutlery compared to mine which resembles more of a blunt object. The main difference is my blunt object runs and drives, but when his is done it is going to be a sweet ride. So we get out of that smoke filled town (the fire was still burning on Wolf Creek Pass--they had just opened the pass up the day before we rolled through) and headed into a smoke filled Durango. It is Independence Day. We check into the Caboose. The lady at the front desk remembers me from last year, well, actually she remembers Suburban and me by default. Meh, I'll take it. We do our load in and decide to head downtown to get some grub and check out the parade and fireworks later on. On the way downtown my boy asks if we are leaving tomorrow?? I say that we are, unless we decide to stay another day and left it at that. We got downtown and found a bar/restaurant establishment. While we were eating the parade started, so we got to eat and watch the parade. While we were eating, my wife asked if I wanted to stay another day here?? Like she really had to ask. I got on the horn with the Caboose and they had a room left, but not the same one we were in, so a bag-drag was required. It actually worked out for the better as the room we had was up front against main street and a bit noisy for my liking.

So we wandered around Durango and got back to the truck just in time to pull the chairs out and watch the fireworks. It was a nice show and we headed back to the room. We sat around for a bit discussing what we were going to do tomorrow since we hadn't panned on being there another day. We decided on Silverton.

We got up the next morning and did our load out. We headed up the road and got some lunch in Silverton. From there we headed northwest out of town up to the Old Hundred Mine. This is a gold mine that never really paid out beyond the initial claim. Tons of money was dumped into the operation, but the payback never really materialized. Guided tours of the mine are the only financial payout these days. It is a really neat tour if you've never seen a mining operation. We see mining remnants when we travel around here, but not in the actual mine, nor do we get to see them in operation. This mine has it all. You get on a crew train and drive into an adit about 1/2 mile into Galena Mountain.



There you get off the train and head down a drift off of the adit where they have a jack leg drill set up. Not only is it set up, they actually run it so you can hear just how obnoxious it was to operate (or be near).



They then take you past an elevator which is summoned or dispatched by a series of bell rings.



At that point you head down an adjacent drift where they show a bunch of miner's goods. Lunch cans, carbide lamps, tools, etc.



There is a series of holes drilled in the face of the drift that show how they patterned the holes and how they would detonated the explosives and the order in which the explosives went off in order to clear the blasted rock out of the wall.



That drift takes you back out to the adit that the crew train runs in. You pass under an ore chute that carries ore or waste rock down from upper levels:



At the end of the tour the guide gives a demonstration on a mucking machine. There are mucking machines scattered across the western United States, but seeing one in action is a rare occurrence for a person who is not employed in a mine. A mucking machine has a bucket like a front end loader on it (only much smaller) and it scoops up rock and the bucket raises up and swings back over the top of the machine to dump the rock in an ore car behind it to be pulled out of the mine and dumped down the side of the hill or transported to the mill site.



That pretty much ended the tour. You get back on the crew train and head out of the mine. There is a trough outside that is stocked with some copper and silver that the kids (or adults) can pan for gold in. My boy did that for a while and then we wandered around the site for a bit. I found a crew train power unit out back of the maintenance shed. It has a two cylinder Detroit in it. As noisy as the electric train we rode in the mine on was, I'd hate to be anywhere near this thing when it was in the mine:



Now the level we toured was actually one of the lower levels of the mine. The original claim (and the only one that actually paid) was located up the mountain. 2000 feet up the mountain. When you are on the level we toured, you can walk out to the edge of the mine dump and just barely catch a glimpse of the original bunkhouse and tram building. We headed out of the site a different way than you are "supposed" to go. We went down the trail a ways and the buildings come into sight a little better. One must keep in mind that the buildings are almost a half mile up and when you travel farther away, they get smaller. I had a decent vantage point of them, so I threw a long lens on the camera, put the camera on a tripod and tried to get a few pics of them. I was able to crop in on one and get a decent view of the buildings:



I am guessing that there is over a mile of separation from where I took the pic to the buildings themselves. The trail that serviced the buildings back in the day is long gone. What is left is literally just wide enough to walk heel-to-toe on and eventually it just disappears, leaving you about 300' above the buildings. Most of the roof on the bunkhouse caved in years ago, but about ten years ago a crew got together and took supplies up there (by helicopter) and repaired the roof structure on the bunkhouse and did some stabilization to the tram building. What a project.